4 Weeks Intensive Portrait drawing and painting course, from start to varnish and beyond
With David Jon Kassan – July 2010
Course Location: Porcheresse in the Belgium Ardennen.
The class will form a 4 weeks true artist community, housed in this historical castle in the lush Belgium Ardennen. The location provides the solitude necessary for this immersion course. The peacefulness will guarantee that you do not loose focus of the intent of the course, however, big cities like Brussels and Gent are about one hour and less than two hours away. Smaller cities and major tourist attractions are close by. There is ample opportunity to engage in unsupervised community plein air or other painting events in the evenings and weekends. Instructor may join in these events and paint alongside the students. More information about the location will be made available soon. Artists are also free to spend their free time exploring the wonderful sites of Belgium.
The focus of this course will be on advanced life painting and drawing methods to investigate the underlying rhythm, expression and emotion of the
modern portrait. Students will work to develop a clarity of vision that is essential to accurate observation; learning to focus on what is in front of us without being overwhelmed. Through this intensive observation students will explore the uniqueness of individual features and their relationship to each other as part of a coherent whole.
An emphasis will be on understanding the structure of the model, as well as the artist’s analysis and interpretation of the model. We will be concentrating on one model and pose for the entire 4 weeks so that we can be patient in our observations and documentation. Demonstrations will be given each morning in order to fully illustrate my process from start to varnish. (TM Ego) All questions will be answered both visually as well as verbally. The majority of this workshop’s instruction will be one on one coaching, in order to understand how it is that each individual student sees the model and to help diagnose any stumbling blocks that they may have.
Students will execute preliminary drawings before moving on to full-scale oil paintings. All observation will be cumulative and used towards finishing one painting in the month. Instruction will include discussion of practical technical information on different paint qualities, pigments, palette, mediums, and paint supports. The properties of light on form and how the topography of the face’s form can be visualized and represented will be discussed, as well as light temperature (natural and artificial) and placement to capture different effects and moods.
Most importantly, students will learn to transcend the materials so that their full concentration is placed on expressing the model’s presence and emotion.
My goal is to give this class a sense of community, where anything art related can be discussed (books, galleries, artists, techniques), debated, enlightened and experienced. The class is a collaborative group there is no competition, only sources of help and encouragement among many students of many diverse backgrounds and different levels of proficiency. I will be able> to share my experiences and insights into studying, exhibiting, approaching galleries, clients, collectors and the overall development of my career as a visual artist over the past 10 years.
This will be an intensive painting practicum with a concentration on the artist in whole. Students will be challenged to develop a strong foundation from which to explore and evolve, for years to come. Classes will be 6 hours daily from Monday to Friday.
Registration for this course is closed.
More information about David Kassan can be found here